Serial Box

Introduction

What is the purpose of a book’s introduction?

Think of it like being introduced to a new person. Meeting new people is awkward, and so is reading a book without knowing any context. The introduction is the ice-breaker to your conversation with a book.

And since the author (in this case, me) already knows the book pretty well, they’re the ones best suited to writing the introduction.

Just like with introductions between people, book introductions are best kept short.

Book this is a reader. They’re going to be looking at your pages for a little while.
Reader, this is book. They have some words you might be interested in seeing.

This book is a short story collection. More than that, each story is a collection of smaller stories. Kind of like a Russian nesting doll. That’s the one thing each work has in common—they’re all made up of small fragments, which fit together to form a larger narrative. Kind of like a mosaic. Each story is told in a serialize format. And this collection boxes them all together. Thus the title.

I’ve written short introductions to most of these individual pieces to provide some additional context and to help make some sense of the nonsense you’re reading.

Consider the literary ice broken. Now go read.